MU*Wiki Promo Session 2007
MU*Wiki Promotion Session Brody of jointhesaga.com gave this presentation at FidoCon II on Nov. 30, 2007: Brody plops down onto a barstool that appears out of nowhere. "So, I'm at lunch the other day at Wendy's, grabbing a burger and fries, and I take my tray over to the condiment station. I'm filling those little cups with ketchup when two guys in ties and bad haircuts - restaurant management - come wandering over. One says to the other: 'There was a lot of build-up under this one.' And he points to the OTHER ketchup dispenser. This is the height of the lunch rush, by the way. Which is when the following thought popped into my head: 'THIS IS WHY WE HAVE AN ADMIN CHANNEL.'" Scourge snickers. Bahamut says, "..." Kallyn2 giggles. cratylus says, "lulz" Brody says, "Our next topic is a very noble idea that hasn't been given much love from me lately, what with my being slowed down by RL work on an MMO and work on my own projects. But I lurve the MU*Wiki and I've still got big plans for it. I just need help bringing those plans to fruition." Brody says, "The MU*Wiki, at http://mu.wikia.com, is an ambitious project that's meant to provide a free advertising space for text-based games that gets those games noticed beyond the familiar promotional venues like MUD Connector and Top MUD Sites. I like what TMC and TMS do, but they cater mostly to a crowd that already knows what our games are. With MU*Wiki's location in a communal Wiki site, it's in prime position to reach the yet-to-MUD crowd." Brody says, "The beauty of MU*Wiki is it's a collaborative project and anyone can help out. If you've got a favorite game and they don't have a page there, you can make one, categorize it, and away it goes." Brody says, "If the game has a page, you can make your own character pages and link from the game page to the character pages." Brody points at Nait. "You'll find a bunch of jointhesaga.com-related stuff in the MU*Wiki because Nait is a machine and put a bunch of our material there. I'd like to see the same from other games." Volissenait bows. Brody says, "And while I prefer quality over quantity, there's something to be said for quantity at Wikia.com - the more pages you've got, the bigger the Wiki is, and it gets recognized as such in the community listings." Brody says, "Check out http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Big_wikis" Brody says, "At the bottom of the page, you'll see OtherVerse among the ones listed there. That's our jointhesaga.com game Wiki. If we can get that much material out of three games, imagine how much we could get if the whole MUD community got together and made a big knowledgebase!" Brody says, "Again, the hugeness of the OtherVerse Wiki is due largely to Nait and a few other diligent folks." Volissenait says, "You've still got me beat in page count though, *grumbles*" Brody grins. Scourge scuffs at the ground thinking about how he needs to update his entry more. Brody says, "The MU*Wiki needs game pages. It needs character pages. It needs stories. It needs art. It needs code samples for the archive3s. It needs pages about codebases. It needs pages about how to develop games. It needs pages about the people behind the games." Brody says, "Think of the MU*Wiki as another free advertising venue that opens our access to new blood beyond the normal crop of MUDers." Brody says, "Any questions thus far?" Brody says, "No questions? Splendid! Then head over to http://mu.wiki.com. Send your friends! Tell your game developers! Alert the media! Set up pages and start building the MU*Wiki." Kensei says, "Too late for a question?" Brody says, "No, not at all." Kensei says, "Would a mud-owner have any priviledges to lock out a page, if there's vandalism? A primary editor, or something like that? I'm not familiar with Wikia." Kensei says, "Or Wikipedia, really." Brody says, "We've got a few moderators. Generally, Wikis are designed to be collaborative. Vandalism is rare, but when it happens, someone like me will have rollback ability. I can make it so the vandalism never happened. We *can* protect pages, but it's frowned on and sort of sends a message of standoffishness and elitism that can be offputting." Kensei nods. Kensei says, "Sometimes a nasty player can be persistent, though." Brody says, "And they can be banned." Scourge says, "it seems like there is an undo function too?" Brody says, "Rollback." Scourge says, "or is that the same as rollback" Brody nods. Brody says, "Look, I've made enough enemies in 10 years that some of them have gone on to make their own hate sites. If THEY can't be bothered to mess with my pages...I'm not too worried. It requires some knowledge of Wikis and a real dedication to being a jackass - especially when the damage can be undone. Where's the fun of vandalizing something where your work is quickly erased? Totally defeats the purpose." Volissenait says, "There shouldn't be any persistent players, though, for as the MU Wiki's policy states, Vandalism is NOT tolerated, and the user will be banned from posting on the first offence. Right Brody?" Brody says, "Yep." Brody says, "I've found that the bitchy players prefer to stay in their own protected perches and throw poop." Joker2 chuckles Kensei says, "I didn't mean to imply it wasn't trustworthy, but since it was part of a larger site I wasn't sure who you'd need to talk to about nastiness." cratylus says, "vandalizing a wiki is pointless. vandals learn this quickly." Kensei says, "I still don't really understand how Wikipedia works, frankly." cratylus says, "there is only one of them, and there are multiple other editors. the math wins in the end" Brody nods. "I'm the MU*Wiki site admin, so I have the power to smack down the bad guys. Our biggest problem is from random spammers - they ADD pages with garbage links in them. They don't really mess with existing content." Brody is looking for other MU*Wiki moderators, by the way. Safety in numbers! Brody says, "Anyone interested can send email to wes@jointhesaga.com." Kensei says, "So short of Stephen Colbert mentioning it on the Report, our pages should be fine?" Brody laughs. "God, that would be awesome. He's a gaming geek." category:FidoCon 2007